


Dear Rabbit

by mirawonderfulstar



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Crying, Drift Side Effects, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hive Mind, Kidnapping, Love, M/M, Mental Instability, Protectiveness, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 03:15:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21385168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirawonderfulstar/pseuds/mirawonderfulstar
Summary: Newt's attempt to get Hermann on his and Alice's side doesn't go as planned.
Relationships: Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb
Comments: 2
Kudos: 38





	Dear Rabbit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HoloXam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoloXam/gifts).

> i wrote this because i could NOT stop thinking about I Know I'm A Wolf by the Young Heretics and precursor!Newt, and then holo and I were talking on twitter about Newt fooling himself that he was Doing All This To Protect Hermann so like, if you want the Soundtrack to this that's it

Newt threw himself down into his chair (well, functionally a chair. In appearance it was really closer to a throne) and draped his legs over the arm, staring up at the ceiling with an impatient sound. He glanced across the room at the figure tied to the much smaller but infinitely more comfortable chair by the window, who was still out cold. How long did people usually stay knocked out? Had Newt known that information once? Oh, but Hermann was more delicate than most humans, wasn’t he. How long would _ Hermann _ stay knocked out? Was this long normal? Had Newt hurt him? 

The thought turned something in his stomach and he launched himself out of the throne again and paced across the room, where he leaned over Hermann and peered closely at his face. He seemed to be breathing normally, at any rate. Newt’s hands fluttered at his sides for a moment before he turned and paced back up the room, all but wearing a line in the carpet as he looped back again, not quite daring to touch his captive. 

By the time Hermann stirred Newt had started to wonder whether he should just duck into the bedroom and spend the intervening time with Alice. It hadn’t been very long since their last drift but Newt found the hivemind comforting, close and familiar, and thinking about Hermann and the upcoming speech he was going to have to make to his… friend? Something more? Whatever Hermann was to him, he was definitely not looking forward to trying to leverage him around to his side of things. But, Newt thought, gritting his teeth as Hermann raised his head and blinked groggily across the room at him, it had to be done. 

“Newton?” Hermann’s familiar expression of incredulity made Newt grin. Hermann did not grin back. He raised his eyebrows even further and frowned. 

“Hermann! I’ve been waiting a long time for this.” Newt said with too much cheer, and instantly cringed at himself. What kind of comic book villain speech opener—

“Newton, please explain to me why you have me tied up.” Hermann’s tone was impassive, almost bored, and okay, that stung. He wasn’t exactly expecting Hermann to be thrilled about being kidnapped out from under the noses of the rest of his k-science team but he’d been hoping for at least a little bit of… well, a little bit of deference. A little acknowledgement for the truly impressive thing he’d pulled off. But there was time for that. 

“I need to tell you something. Something— something huge, okay, something really really important. But it’s kind of a big deal and it’s not exactly safe and I’ve been trying to get you to come around to my place for, what, a couple years now, and you never have, so I had to uh.” Newt shrugged and bounced a little on the balls of his feet. “Take matters into my own hands.” 

Hermann just looked at him, his jaw slack. 

“Listen, maybe it’s easier if I just show you, okay?” Newt said, turning and bounding into the bedroom where he’d moved Alice’s container and the pons device onto a cart so he could wheel it into the living room more easily. He could feel sweat gathering on the back of his neck and his upper lip and he shook himself once he was out of Hermann’s line of sight. No need to be so nervous, he reminded himself. 

Pushing the cart in front of Hermann yielded the first satisfying reaction of the whole endeavor. Hermann let out a choked sound and tried to back away, and the chair rocked against the thick pane of glass that comprised the far wall of Newt’s high rise. Newt chuckled. 

“So, Hermann,” Newt stepped forward and gestured between the cart and his friend, “this is Alice, you’ve heard a lot about her but she’s heard way more about you. Glad you two are finally going to be able to meet.” 

Hermann gaped for a moment, his eyes flashing between the jar, the pons, and Newt’s face, and then some emotion Newt couldn’t read came into his face. 

“You’ve been… you’ve been drifting with this hind brain, then? For years?” 

“Exactly!” Newt was thrilled he’d put it together. He’d forgotten how smart Hermann was, how good it was not to have to explain everything he was thinking or doing all the time. “And you’re here because I want to loop you into the plan.” 

“What—” Hermann swallowed, his eyes caught on the pons for a very long moment, “what plan?” 

“Oh, I think you know roughly what the plan is.” All Newt’s nervousness was gone and he was almost buoyant with relief over it. “You and me. Become part of the hivemind. Help destroy the world. Fly off into the sunset together.” 

Hermann raised his eyes to look at him and Newt felt his buoyant bubble pop as sharply as if somebody had stuck a pin in it. The expression on Hermann’s face was six shades of sorrow, his eyes wide, his mouth set in the firm way Newt remembered meant he was about to make a very hasty retreat, and it made Newt want to break something. 

“Don’t look like that, jesus, Hermann, it’s…” He turned away, fiddling with the equipment on the table, getting it ready for Hermann’s use, “_god _, I don’t need your pity.” 

“You _ what? _” A flicker of anger, good. Newt could work with that. They’d always been better at arguing than anything else. 

“Don’t go feeling sorry for me, I can practically hear you thinking right now, _oh, poor Newton, he’s been alone with nothing but his own head and an entire alien species for company for ten years, and it’s all my fault because I never checked up on him,_ well guess what Hermann? That was probably the best thing you’ve ever done for me, because look at me now.” Newt flung his arms wide, looking around the apartment. “Billionaire, head tech guy for an important company, the only person alive who can make the claim that the fate of the world rests in their hands.” He stepped forward and prodded Hermann in the chest with one finger, and Hermann flinched. “I’m the most powerful man in on earth.” 

“Yes, but why would you want to be?” Hermann burst out. “Why would you want the precursors to win? Didn’t everything we worked for all those years mean anything to you— oh, good lord, of course it did. This is ridiculous.” Hermann eyed the pons again with deep loathing and Newt wanted to scream. 

“No, this isn’t just something in my head. This isn’t some trouble I got myself into, Hermann, this is me! My plan, my work, my…” Newt shifted from foot to foot, anxious again. “I did this for you, you know.” 

“You really didn’t.”

“I did! I brought you here so I could show you.” 

“Newton, I will not be drifting with your girlfriend.” 

“Oh, come on, Hermann, don’t be like that.” 

Hermann gazed at him coolly. 

“Are you jealous, is that it? Because you really don’t—” 

“Am I jealous of a _ brain in a jar? _ ” Hermann’s tone was shrill. “Am I jealous that you’ve spent the last decade locked up with this… this _ thing _ because you’re too bloody-minded to see you’re hurting yourself? Am I _ jealous? _” Hermann’s eyes were full of tears and his mouth was trembling. He gave a half-hearted tug against the rope holding his wrists. “Newton, let me go.” His voice was a defeated sound barely above a whisper, and it shot a pang through Newt’s chest. 

“Hermann, don’t—” he stepped forward, reached a hand out to cup Hermann’s face, let a glistening tear catch on his thumb. Hermann closed his eyes and pressed his lips tight together, and Newt let out a shaky sigh. “Hermann. It’s okay, you’ll be okay. I’ll take care of you. We’ll take care of each other. Hey, we were sort of good at that, remember?” He chuckled again, but it was sad now,_ he _ was sad now. He didn’t want Hermann to be unhappy because of him. 

Hermann took a deep breath and opened his eyes again. “What exactly did you think was going to happen after you help the precursors destroy the world?” 

Newt blinked. “What?” 

“After your plan comes to fruition. Where do _ we go? _” 

Newt shook his head. “It’s not— the plan isn’t that sort of plan, Hermann, it’s—” 

“Did you even think this through all the way to the end? Did you expect me to _ die _ with you?” There’s something in Hermann’s tone that isn’t scorn at all, but it stings the same way, as if Hermann had slapped him. As if Hermann had reached inside him, found the exact thing he’d hidden from himself, and pulled it out into the light for all to see. And he _ knew, _ Newt thought with rising panic, Hermann just looked at him and _ knew _ that Newt had never really expected to get out of this alive. And he was _ sorry. _

“I—” Newt took a deep and completely ineffectual breath. He swallowed, and swallowed, and still a choked sound came from his throat as Hermann looked at him like he _ saw _ him. 

“Untie me. Please.” Hermann said, so softly, and Newt wanted to scream, to run at him and shake him, but he also knew, suddenly, that he’d thought earlier that he’d wanted to frighten Hermann. He’d wanted Hermann to be scared, and now, looking at him, watching the tears rolling down his cheeks and his hands clenching on the arms of his chair, he remembered, like surfacing from a long dream, that Hermann had only ever been scared of one thing. 

Newt collapsed at Hermann’s feet, biting back sobs, fumbled the ropes loose before he lost the remaining shreds of his self-control. As soon as he was free Hermann sunk to the ground beside him and pulled him into his arms. 

“Oh, Newton.” Hermann sighed, and Newt felt him press a kiss to the nape of his neck, holding him while Newt cried against him. “Oh, dear Newton.” 

Newt hiccuped. “Shut up.” 

“No.” There was warmth in Hermann’s voice, warmth and humor and comfort, and Newt thought wildly that he’d gone about this all wrong the whole time, that maybe he should have just told Hermann and let him come to him out of misplaced obligation or pity or—

“I’ve got you.” Hermann murmured against him. “We’re safe.” 

Newt let out a slightly hysterical laugh. “You know the precursors don’t really have a concept of ‘safe’? Don’t really have a concept of danger, either, that’s probably why, you know, it’s just something that needs replaced. One of them dies or is defective or whatever and they can just grow another one. It’s all interchangeable.” 

Newt felt Hermann nuzzling his nose into his hair. “You’re not defective, Newton.” 

A fresh wave of tears spilled from Newt’s eyes at that. “How can you say that after everything—”

The grip on Newt’s shoulders tightened. “Newton.” 

“Okay.” Newt swallowed, feeling Hermann’s own tears soak into his shoulder. “Okay.”


End file.
